


Curious

by StarrySerenades



Category: Disney - All Media Types
Genre: (Referenced) - Freeform, Alice in Wonderland, Disney, Father-Daughter Relationship, Mickey Mouse - Freeform, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit - Freeform, Steamboat Willie, Walt Disney - Freeform, alice comedies - Freeform, but there is absolutely no shipping going on here, if anything, no thinking otherwise, should be clear, so please
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:48:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26809144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarrySerenades/pseuds/StarrySerenades
Summary: (One of the works I'm bringing over from my Tumblr, which I'm deleting soon.)Started out as a "what happens to forgotten characters who aren't toons?" thing, and then that part got left out completely.  But if you want to know my thought process behind this, it's that those "live action" characters still exist apart from their actors as spirits, but if they're forgotten they don't get to join the Toons in a place like Wasteland.  They simply fade away UNLESS they are brought back in some way, shape, or form as a Toon...in which case they retain fragmented memories of their past life, possibly in the form of dreams.I just thought it would be neat to sort of draw a connection between the Alice Comedies and Alice in Wonderland.  However different, they’re both inspired from the same story, so I like to think that in "character logic", that means they may be connected.
Kudos: 3





	Curious

The room smelled of ink and paper. It was a calming sort of scent, thought the girl as she clambered onto a wooden stool and peered over the countless sketches that lay scattered in front of her. But a lonely one too. 

She leaned over to get a closer look and found her heart aching. A world was being built before her eyes and, once upon a time, she may well have been able to step inside of it. She wished she still could, but knew all too well that the land scrawled on these pages–one of boats and waves and playful music–was not hers to explore.

So whose was it?

There was a rustling of papers and a faint whistle, and the girl gasped softly. It was only then that she noticed the tiny droplets of ink sprinkled upon the sketches like a pathway. A faint smile crossed her lips when she realized they weren’t droplets at all…they were footprints. Someone had found their way out of the pages. 

Dropping from the stool as quietly as she could, she tiptoed to the corner of the room. It didn’t take her long to realize that the whistling hadn’t stopped. Rather, it continued on in rhythmic sequence. There was no melody, no song. Just a periodic note that grew slightly louder the closer she got to another dimly lit desk.

And then she saw it. Burrowed in between a stack of papers was a tiny figure, body rising and falling with short breaths that ended in a shrill whistle. His tail hung over the edge, curling every now and then before falling back into a limp little swing and brushing against the edges of the paper.

But it was his face that made the girl giggle, if only for the sheer cuteness of it all. A peaceful grin sat on his lips, and his nose twitched with the excitement of whatever silly thing he was dreaming of in his sleep. 

So this was the one who would take their place? 

“His name is Mickey.”

She’d been standing on her tiptoes but lost her balance when she heard the familiar voice. She quickly threw her hands over her mouth to muffle a squeal and, though much quieter than she would have been otherwise, still fell on the floor, a flurry of papers fluttering onto her lap. 

But she didn’t stay quiet for long. Because when she blew a black curl from in front of her eyes, she saw the person standing in front of her and any sense of patient restraint was lost to giddy excitement. “Papa Walt!” she squealed happily, and rushed into his arms. 

He laughed and caught her, twirling her around the room before setting her back down on one of the wooden stools. “Hello, Alice,” he smiled, eyes sparkling. “I see you’ve found our newest friend.” 

The little girl giggled and nodded. “He’s so cute!” she whispered. 

“Would you like to say hello?” Walt asked, with a hushed voice that was more for dramatic effect than to actually keep quiet. The storyteller in him was peaking through, and the little girl’s curiosity was absolutely fueled by it.

“Can I??” she breathed, leaning in. 

Walt just smiled again and tapped lightly on the desk before them. The little mouse’s ear twitched once, then twice. Then, with another sweep of his tail, his eyelids slid open just the tiniest bit. 

Alice giggled, hardly able to contain her excitement. Legs swinging nervously beneath her, she smiled and gave him a little wave.

“Hi, Mickey..!”

The sleep disappeared from his face quite quickly, replaced instead by wide eyes full of intrigue. He tilted his head to one side and looked at her, tail whisking back and forth behind him. 

“Mickey, this is Alice,” Walt explained softly as the mouse looked on, eagerly taking in every new bit of information. “One of the other friends I told you about.”

At this, Mickey jumped up in excitement and ran to the edge of the desk. He pointed at Alice then back at himself, jabbing a tiny furred finger at his own chest. 

**_Like me?_ **

Alice laughed nervously. “Oh! Um…not quite,” she giggled, making an “x” with her arms so he could understand. When he squinted in confusion, she continued on. “You’re drawn…” She pointed at him and mimicked using a pencil to sketch something out. “But I’m…well…”

But the girl suddenly felt very faint and before she knew it, the seat of the stool was no longer beneath her. 

“Alice, can you hear me?” she heard Walt call and realized after several hazy blinks that he had caught her. Mickey was atop his shoulder and was staring down at her too, worried but confused. He couldn’t have known what was happening. She’d barely known what was happening up until a year or two prior, when a certain rabbit had taken the stage and all this began to happen.

But she knew now. 

“They’re forgetting me….” she whispered, a hint of fear in her voice. She lifted a small hand and could have sworn she saw right through it until she blinked and it regained form once again. But when she tried to stand, her strength faltered and she fell back into his hands with a pained whimper.

“It’s all right,” Walt comforted, voice strained. Imaginative as he was, this was something out of his control. “Is that why you came?”

Alice smiled softly, tears welling. “I just wanted to say goodbye…”

He hugged her close and she squeezed her eyes shut, terrified to leave everything behind so soon. It wasn’t long before she felt a third tiny figure snuggle against her cheek. And that was when the tears started to flow. 

“Aw…Mickey…” she whimpered, letting him climb into the palm of her hand. When he looked up at her, the expression on his face was so fragile and so inexplicably afraid, she almost felt guilty for not being able to stop this on her own. But she could feel the warmth and kindness radiating from his newfound heart, and it gave her hope.

And it seemed that hope fueled Mickey too, for as Alice held him close and he clung to her dress, a faint glow surrounded him. And without so much as a twitch of his tail (so that it seemed far more accidental than purposeful), he sent the light bursting into Alice’s heart too. 

She saw a flurry of ink and color before her. A wonderland of curious beauty and adventure. And a girl in a blue dress who looked nothing like her…and yet, somehow…she knew it was. A different world, but one born from the same story that had inspired her own.

A moment later, she blinked and it was gone. The mouse seemed not to have noticed what his own magic had caused, but as Walt cradled her fading form, he squeezed her hand and gave her the sort of look he only ever shared when he had something important to say. 

“He’s going to help me create something incredible, Alice…” he assured her, and said it with such a resolve that she knew it was meant as a promise. 

**_I’ll bring you back when we do…_ **

She just laughed lightly, lifting the small mouse and nuzzling his nose before setting him back with Walt. “Can’t wait…”

She blinked several times before letting her eyes slip shut. And as she drifted off, the same light that had entered her heart hovered where she’d been, then darted off, taking refuge within the pages of a book which would one day be opened and unraveled for all to see. 

But the creator and the creation were left alone. The creator continued to move forward as he always had. And as he’d promised, he created something unlike the world had ever seen. Stories and fantasies full of wonder and magic, that brought to life every idea the imagination could conjure.

The mouse discovered his magic and used it to do the same. Memories of the day faded, though he never truly forgot. But neither did he recognize why the little girl in the blue dress, who appeared many, many years later, seemed to know him so incredibly well. 

How so very curious. 


End file.
